Lessons from the 2022 Proxy Season—Episode 2: Environmental Proposals

Corporate Governance co-heads Marc Treviño and Melissa Sawyer and associate June Hu continue their discussion of shareholder proposal trends from the 2022 proxy season, discussing trends in environmental proposals, as well as how to prepare for 2023.

Environmental proposals have steadily increased over the past decade, with an explosion in 2021 and 2022. In 2021, these proposals rose 40 percent year-over-year and this year they jumped a further 38 percent.

With proponents more reluctant to settle and the Securities and Exchange Commission less likely to grant no-action relief, 78 percent more environmental proposals reached a shareholder vote compared to 2021. One of the most notable trends was the increased granularity of these proposals. Correlated with this increasing granularity, however, the 2022 environmental proposals received lower levels of shareholder support. 

Looking forward, they expect that companies will have an even harder time negotiating a compromise or excluding environmental shareholder proposals, which may become even more granular in their demands.

Learn more from S&C’s 2022 Proxy Season Review and watch our recent webinar.